When it was announced back at E3, the free-games-for-paid-subscribers deal called Games With Gold was supposed to last only until the Xbox One’s launch. Well, now it is officially continued as an “ongoing benefit”. That’s not what caught my eye about the announcement, however.
“According to recent surveys, 97 per cent of participating members have given their stamp of approval for Games With Gold,” Microsoft said in this announcement. That is indeed overwhelming support. Question: Who the hell doesn’t approve of free games? The makers themselves? My God, I downloaded some Magic: The Gathering thing off GWGFWLWTFBBQ and even made space for it on my hard drive just because it was free. I played it, like, once. But it’s free! I’M KEEPIN’ IT.
This sounds like the baseball Hall of Fame elections, where some self-appointed scold refuses to vote for a 100 per cent all-time great like Hank Aaron or Nolan Ryan because nothing is supposed to be unanimous. So I ask you, are you against free games? Why do you hate freedom????
Second question, albeit a little more serious: Reading the fine print, I don’t see any language that says these things get taken away from you if you let your Xbox Live Gold sub lapse — whereas the PlayStation Plus free games (still a fantastic bargain) will be inaccessible if you don’t renew. Has anybody pulled a free Games With Gold game and then dropped back to XBL Silver? What happens? I’d be tempted to do so myself but I think I’m signed up through 2015.
Games with Gold: Now an Ongoing Benefit for Xbox Live Gold Members on Xbox 360 [Xbox Wire]
Comments
21 responses to “Xbox Live Survey: Three Per Cent Of Users Don’t Approve Of Free Games?”
Your first mistake was taking an XBL survey seriously.
Well… how do you “give your stamp of approval”? I have Xbox Live Gold but I haven’t downloaded the games since I already own them. So… am I disapproving of them? Vague comment is vague.
There’s probably some hardline teaparty nutjobs with the mentality that: “I’ve got tonnes to easily pay for everything myself, so why should anyone else get it for free!”
I’ve never had an issue with paying $10 a month, so getting Assassins Creed 2 was a nice bonus
Go to any number of online sites like gamecard.com.au or ozgameshop and pay $50 for the year and stop paying extortion prices!
One possible complaint is that they aren’t truly free, but instead being paid for in a bundle with the other services. Perhaps they’d prefer to pay less for multiplayer access, and pick the game they want to buy.
Or that unlike the PSN games, these ones are so old they came out around 2007 or so…
That and all the free games on PSN are absaloutley mud!
But at least you can keep them. I’ve heard of people giving up on PSN+ because if you let your sub go, you let your “free” games go.
That’s kind of beside the point. Whether you keep them or rent them or keep them, you’re still paying for them.
If all you’re after is access to multiplayer, then it is unwanted bundling. If the cost of Xbox Live isn’t justified, then they could lower it rather than bundling in more services.
I pay $50 a year for XBL.That’s half the price of a new game here, you’re getting one game for half price then potentially 23 more games for free.
The fact that the price of an XBL hasn’t changed to reflect GWG means they are free. There isn’t any additional cost for the games.
… or it means there was a high enough profit margin to allow Microsoft to add the service without raising the price. Do you really think no money changed hands when Ubisoft have Microsoft permission to give away copies of Assassin’s Creed?
Either way, you’re not paying additional money for the games.
Were the other three percent saying “I don’t want free games” or “I don’t want shitty old free games”? Assasins Creed, Halo and Fable have been the only decent games from memory.
I liked that hero’s of might and magic that i recently downloaded oh and loving magic the gathering too
“Hey, I get free games every month! But wait, other people are going to be getting them too! This’ll be terrible, Live is RUINED FOREVEEEEEEEEEEEEER!
/gamer entitlement.
You don’t lose the games if your XBL lapses into silver.
Also: I doubt the people have an issue with receiving free games, per se, but rather which WHICH free games microsoft has offered up.
To me they’re kind of pointless. I have an original 360 with a whole 20GB of hard drive space.
Guess how many games I download and store on that hard-drive? Also for some reason downloading directly from XBL seems to take ten times as long as it takes me to download a game from Steam which is five times the size. What gives, XBL?
If I had to pay EXTRA for the shitty free games that most hardcore gamers already own and played to death five years ago, then no, I absolutely wouldn’t. But as for some added benefit that doesn’t harm me which I can ignore? Sure, whatever, go do your thing game downloaders, be happy.
Sorry if a daft question – what is GWGFWLWTFBBQ ?
I guessed Games, With, Gold, Free? With? Live? ?????????
It depends on what type of “free” games. Free games now days means pay to win games. So if it’s an actual proper game you are getting for free, thats good. If it’s a “free” game you are getting that is packed up the arse with micro transactions, thats bad.